Organoids in Love
by Chaotic Century
Summary: Will Ambient ever win the heart of the girl he pines for? A CC/GF one-shot in the Shakespearean comedy tradition.
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter 1**_

 _hey! wanna hang at my place later?_

Ambient tapped the "Send" button with one trembling claw and waited. And waited. And waited. And when his phone's screen timed out two minutes later, he put it down on the coffee table in front of him and continued to stare at it, awaiting the chime and blinking light of a reply.

None came.

Ambient paced anxiously around the room, glancing fitfully at his phone every three seconds or so, and when he finally couldn't stand it anymore, he grabbed his phone, turned the screen back on, and sent another text, this time to a different recipient: _she's not replying! what now? HELP_

The reply came swiftly: _how long_

He checked. _four minutes_ , he wrote.

 _relax bro_

Ambient sighed heavily. How could he possibly relax at a time like this? He replied, _will try. but don't forget your promise! PLS_ He shut off his phone, and decided to go over his checklist for the night one more time, just to be sure. Before he could make his way upstairs to his room, however, an ear-splitting screech interrupted.

"AMMMBIEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNT!"

The red organoid hunched his shoulders automatically against the auditory onslaught. No matter what pinnacles of irritation attained previously, it somehow managed to get even more annoying every time he heard it. He poked his head into the kitchen from whence the racket had come. "Ragh?" he asked.

Hiltz was in one of his "special moods." His eyes were huge and unseeing. His neck bulged with veins. And his mouth, plastered messily with something white and powdery which Ambient could not readily identify, was spread wide in a creepy, manic grin, issuing forth streams of shrill laughter. "I've got it, Ambient, I've got it!" he cried.

"Righ?"

"I finally know how to defeat the Guardian Force," Hiltz hissed, dissolving once more into gleeful giggles. "The Valley of the Rarehertz! We simply lure them there with a nice, fresh-baked pumpkin pie - I know you've become very good at baking as of late, Ambient, yes indeed - and once they are all there, WE ATTACK!"

Ambient shook his head. "Raarrrargh," he explained.

"What would we attack with? Why, the revived Death Stinger, of course!" Hiltz proclaimed.

Ambient looked steadily at him, awaiting the dawning realization.

"You wouldn't be able to control the Death Stinger in the Valley of the Rarehertz because the electronic pulses would mess up your systems," Hiltz said, resigned. "Why are my plans always so cruelly thwarted?!"

Ambient knew that, for Hiltz to be in one of his special moods, he had to have either eaten too much sugar or drank too much alcohol. He didn't especially care which it was; all he knew was that he couldn't let Hiltz ruin everything again. Especially not tonight. Wait! Too much sugar? He couldn't have -

Ambient dove into the pantry, seized a small box, and looked inside. There, to his immense relief, were the dozen cooling cupcakes he had baked earlier that morning. At least Hiltz hadn't gotten into them! He shuddered, imagining the horror that would have been unleashed had Hiltz consumed that amount of sugar all at once. He had probably just drank too much again.

Ambient put the cupcakes back on the pantry shelf and returned to the kitchen. Hiltz was now sitting at the table, giggling to himself and undoubtedly plotting further harebrained shenanigans. "Pumpkin pie!" he muttered, wringing his hands frantically. "There has got to be a way we can use pumpkin pie. In combination with what? How can we most fully realize the supreme powers of pumpkin pie?" He looked up at Ambient just then. "DENTAL FLOSS!" he screamed. "Yes! Dental floss it shall be! TO THE SECRET LAB!" He dashed off to his "secret lab," which was in fact a small home office off of the den. Ambient watched him go, then decided it was probably okay to head upstairs now, since Hiltz usually didn't get up to too much trouble in his "secret lab."

Ambient grabbed his phone off of the coffee table in the living room and headed upstairs. It wasn't until he reached his bedroom that he noticed the device's notification light blinking. A text message! He checked, his Zoid core pulsing so fast he thought it might explode. It was from her! This was it! The moment he'd been waiting for!

-.-.-.-

Specular felt both nervous and giddy about the text she had received that afternoon. On the one hand, it was terrifying to think about what it could mean. On the other hand, it was very exciting to think about what it could mean! Were there going to be others of their friends there, or would it be - good heavens! - just the two of them? Alone? The thought was almost too much! What did he have in mind? Was it even remotely possible that he had finally come around? Her Zoid core fluttered.

She knew there was just one major roadblock standing in the way of her plans tonight. And she'd have to ask sooner or later.

"NOW, SPECULAR!" came a demonic cry from the other room. Time to face the music.

Specular poked her head into Reese's bedroom from whence the shriek had come. "Ragh?" she queried.

"Oh, nothing dear, I was just practicing," Reese said, dismissing her with a wave. It was now or never.

"Raaeerrrgh?" Specular asked bravely. She crossed her pointy little claws, hoping against hope for the permission she needed.

"I suppose," Reese said. "Will you two be alone?"

Specular shrugged. She honestly wasn't sure.

"If that buffoon Hiltz will be there, then yes, you may go to Ambient's house tonight. But if not..." Her tone became icy. "If you'll be alone together, you must promise me something." Her lifeless blue eyes were mesmerizing. Specular stepped closer to hear. She would do almost anything to have this opportunity. "Promise me, dear girl...THAT YOU WILL BE SAFE AT ALL COSTS!" Specular jumped backwards in startlement. "Men are swine, you know, and in saying so I do grave insult to pigs. They will stop at nothing to get what they are after, and you KNOW what they are after!"

Specular wanted to melt into the floor rather than hear this lecture...again. If only her Zoid core would spontaneously combust.

"Luckily, men are all fools and easy to manipulate!" Reese continued obliviously. "Do not forget what I have taught you, my love! You possess staggering psychic power and if Ambient would make a suitable zombie pawn for you, then I will in no way stand between you two! Now that I think on it," she said, gazing off into the distance, "I believe Ambient would make an excellent pet. Just think of how useful he could be when you're ready to move out on your own! Yes, yes, go with my blessings, darling. And if he tries anything..." Her eyes blazed a psychotic blue and she dissolved into shrieking maniacal laughter.

Specular nodded and backed carefully out of the room. In the hallway, she clutched her paws to her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. Astonishingly, that could have gone far, far worse. And best of all, she was allowed to go! She pulled out her phone, and texted Ambient back, at long last.

 _Sounds great! :)_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_

 _she wrote back dude! we're on 4 tonite! 2 more hours!_

 _rad. good luck bro_ , came the reply.

Ambient all but danced happily about. But now was not the time to lose his cool! He had planning to do. Two hours would pass by before he knew it, and he needed to make that time count. Step one: get Hiltz out of the house for as long as possible. It was time to arrange for some errands.

He hurried over to the home office off of the den, furthermore known as "the secret lab," and knocked.

"Yeee-eee-eees?" came the gleefully evil reply.

Ambient nudged the door open with his nose. "Raagrgghh!" he announced, as emphatically as possible.

"A foolproof plan for defeating the Guardian Force, you say?!" Hiltz shrieked joyfully. "Tell me at once! What do we need to do?"

Ambient spread a poster-size sheet of paper out on Hiltz's desk. It was covered in official-looking schematics, diagrams, and figures, none of which made sense, not that that particular detail mattered in the slightest. "Raaiigghrrhh," he explained, pointing to one shapeless mass of rectangles, arrows, and lines. He then swept his paw grandly over to another section of the poster, with similarly indecipherable contents, and tapped this area significantly with one claw. "Riiooorrraggh."

Hiltz nodded eagerly. "Yes, yes, I see! And then?"

"Reeaarraarrgggh!" Ambient concluded triumphantly, pointing to the center of the poster, which contained the only intelligible illustration of the entire document: a cartoon-like Ultrasaurus lying on its back with Xs for eyes and its tongue hanging out.

"IT'S BRILLIANT!" Hiltz thundered, practically beside himself. "Ambient, you're a genius! As a reward for your incredible intellect, when we finally declare victory I will see to it that your boosters are upgraded posthaste!" He continued to stare at the poster, shaking his head in awe and wonderment. "You know what the most amazing part of all is? You didn't even need pumpkin pie to pull off a plot so perniciously perfect!"

Ambient handed him a lengthy shopping list that he had prepared, designed to keep Hiltz occupied for as long as possible by including no more than two items available at any given shop, as well as a large number of goods that Hiltz would not be able to afford. Hiltz looked over the list, nodding. "A rusty barrel, three fine-mesh tea strainers, a ten-gallon bucket of cobwebs, a sixteen-carat diamond, a few German-Zoidian bilingual dictionaries, and an outdated globe of Zi for phase one. Yes, yes. Excellent!" He gazed blissfully into Ambient's shining emerald eyes. "You...are a wonder, Ambient." He touched his hand reverently to Ambient's red cheek. "A wonder." He then turned and dashed out of the room, clutching the list securely in his hand. "I will begin acquiring our supplies right away! For today marks the beginning of the end of the detested Guardian Force!"

Ambient heard the front door slam and walked out into the den, waiting and listening. Hiltz's old beater coupe wheezed to life and roared off down the street. Could it possibly have been this easy?

-.-.-.-

Specular was staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her sheet metal was freshly polished, and her yellow eyes shone like gemstones. She raised one claw to brush a minute bit of schmutz off of one of her mandible horns. She was a very impressive and intimidating organoid, she had to admit.

"SPECULAR!" Reese bellowed suddenly, slamming the bathroom door open and frightening her blue companion nearly out of her wits. Specular's cell phone clattered noisily to the tiled floor. "You're not wasting your time attempting to improve upon perfection for some pathetic _man_ , are you?"

"Riiagh," Specular retorted testily.

"Alright, alright, I will cede the point. THIS TIME!" And with that, Reese faded eerily into the darkened hallway from whence she'd abruptly come. Specular sighed and retrieved her phone from the floor. She held it up, cocked her head just so, opened her mouth a bit to bare her teeth threateningly, and snapped a selfie. Firing it off to her friend, she added: _How do I look?_

 _girl, you are a vision! you sure you want to be dealing with this guy tho? after what he did?_

 _It has to have been some kind of misunderstanding_ , Specular wrote. _He did kind of apologize a few days later. And besides, why else would he have invited me over?_

No response was forthcoming. Specular shrugged and put her phone down, then ran the buffing cloth over her needle-like snout one more time, deep in thought. Surely Ambient hadn't meant to be so rude that night a few weeks ago?

It had been at one of Death Saurer's most epic parties yet. Specular had had her eye on Ambient all night, admiring the handsome red organoid from across the room, wanting desperately to talk to him, but being too afraid to. He seemed to be looking at her sometimes, too, but even this was not enough to help her overcome her fear. She could always simply mind-control him into agreeing to a date, of course, but Specular didn't wish to live her life like Reese did. She didn't want Ambient's companionship if psychically possessing him were the only way it could be accomplished. If he didn't like her, he didn't like her.

It had taken not only plenty of encouragement, but a handful of outright threats from her friend before Specular finally mustered the courage to go over to him. He was standing in the corner with a drink in his paw, laughing with a couple of his mates.

"Righ!" she greeted him with a friendly smile.

"Rogh. Reargh," Ambient replied coolly, not quite meeting her gaze. He seemed instead to be looking somewhere over her shoulder. His two friends simply stared at her, and not in a very friendly manner, either.

She blinked. This wasn't at all going how she'd thought it would. Specular swallowed and took a deep breath. Just stay calm, make easy conversation. Ask how he's doing. "Riagh...reegh rarrighagh?"

Ambient's paw, the one holding his red Solo cup, was shaking slightly, but in response to her brave query, he simply shrugged. "Rooraigh."

Okay? He guessed? That was all he had to say? That was it? Not even a polite continuation of the conversation by asking how she was doing in response? This kept getting worse and worse. Her tail switched back and forth and she had to consciously summon the means to keep it still so that her level of humiliation would not be so evident.

Reese came to mind just then, her scary, vacant eyes blazing blue, and Specular recalled one of the billion times she had been instructed to undertake swift and devastating revenge on any man who treated her with disrespect - the way Ambient was treating her right now. Or maybe it wasn't so much a recollection of something Reese had said in the past, but Reese invading her mind right at this very moment to demand a response to such repugnant and inexcusable male behavior. Specular was never entirely sure where her own consciousness ended and the larger void into which Reese often intruded began.

But no, she knew this was not how she wanted to handle the situation. Pyrrhic victories were ultimately, if not immediately, meaningless.

Specular dejectedly wished him a good time at the party and turned away swiftly before the tears filling her eyes became visible. She made the long trek back across the room and took her friend's gunmetal gray paw. "Reeiorgh," she told her miserably, then headed straight for the front door.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3**_

After sprucing himself up some and tidying the living room, where he assumed he and Specular would be spending most of their evening, Ambient returned to the kitchen and used a sponge to wipe up the drool and unidentified white dust Hiltz had left on the table earlier. A bit less than half an hour to go until Specular's arrival, so he would have to hurry.

He took his cupcakes, fully cooled, out of the pantry and set them on the counter, and began assembling the other items he would need to whip up some frosting for them: a pastry bag and a couple different varieties of star decorating tips for it so he could add some artistic icing flourishes, a large bowl, an electric mixer, then the frosting supplies themselves. Butter, check. A microwave-safe glass measuring cup to soften the butter with, check. Milk, check. Vanilla extract, check. Powdered sugar, che -

No.

Ambient stared in utter disbelief at the plastic container in his claws. This plastic container, as of last night, had contained a full pound of powdered sugar. And now? All that remained were a few dusty flecks at the bottom.

Ambient threw the container aside and began rummaging frantically through the orderly shelves of the pantry. Flour, whole wheat flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, oatmeal, dried lentils, dried black beans, uncooked barley, and two other suspiciously lightweight containers. Peering inside these, Ambient saw telltale signs of the regular white and brown sugars that had once inhabited them.

THERE WAS NO SUGAR IN THE HOUSE.

Recalling the mysterious white powdery substance speckling Hiltz's mouth and the table earlier, Ambient roared in frustration. How could he not have realized in time what had happened? It had been easier to assume Hiltz had gotten completely plastered following his latest foray into recreational drug use than to think for even one second that the crimson-haired maniac had downed at least ten cups of sugar in one sitting, and in three different tasty varieties, no less.

Breathe, breathe, Ambient told himself, hyperventilating anyway. Unfrosted cupcakes? No, that would look like they had been an afterthought. Dash out to the store? No, even with his boosters at maximum output there simply wasn't enough time to fetch the sugar, make the frosting, and frost all of the cupcakes before Specular arrived. Text her that he needed additional time? She would probably think he was a total flake, or worse yet, blowing her off. Buy some other dessert entirely? Almost insultingly impersonal, but perhaps this was his only option...

That was when the doorbell rang. Ambient froze, then flicked his glance over to the microwave. Two minutes to six. Had Hiltz returned from his impossible errands already? Or...

"Raigh?" came a lovely voice from the front door, and the doorbell rang again.

Oh, stars! Specular had arrived, and wouldn't you know it, she was right on time!

-.-.-.-

Specular stood nervously on the doorstep. She heard a noise and saw movement through the curtains, but no one was answering the door. Was she in the right place? Was Ambient really the jerk he'd acted like at the party, after all? Or maybe he just needed a moment? Yes, that must be it.

She dashed off a text to her friend: _Just standing on doorstep feeling like an idiot. No answer to the doorbell but I know someone's home! Why won't he let me in?  
need some help trashing the place?_ came the reply. _im in a mood for total war!_

Specular sighed. There were too many extremists in her social group. Extremism expressed as loyalty towards her, yes, and that was nice and all, but it was too much. _I'm good for now, thanks_ , she wrote back diplomatically. _But don't forget your promise!_ Maybe she could just "influence" Ambient to open the door...

No!

No.

Specular put her phone back in her bag and continued waiting, growing more anxious by the second.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter**_ _ **4**_

There was nothing else to be done but to answer the door. No time like the present to face his annihilation, right?

Ambient approached the front door, took a deep breath, and opened it. "Rerogh!" he greeted her brightly.

"Righ!" Specular replied with a toothy smile. Ambient stepped back to allow her space to enter, but they nevertheless temporarily got kind of awkwardly stuck in the small hallway anyway. The house, of course, had been built with people in mind, not organoids. Ambient sheepishly laughed off the short-lived predicament but inwardly wanted to die, and guided Specular to the living room, where he had a selection of fun, exciting, but not overly gory _or_ romantic DVDs stacked at the base of the flatscreen TV for her perusal.

She was going to expect snacks, though. And that was the problem. All he had were the unfrosted cupcakes. Should he tell her now, or later? Probably now. Again, just get it over with and face the consequences of his ill luck.

"Riargh," he began, still standing in the doorway to the living room as Specular was already curling comfortably into the corner of the massive sofa after selecting the latest _Fast and the Furious_ movie. She looked up at him, and he scratched the back of his neck. How best to express his remorse without making it sound fake? Sometimes you could be completely genuine, and still come off like a liar, and he certainly didn't want that. Best to just be truthful about what had happened with Hiltz, since, if anything came of the organoids' evening together, she was eventually going to find out what a nutcase Ambient's Zoidian companion was, anyway. And so, he started with the basics: that he had made cupcakes for her, but unfortunately, they weren't frosted. Before he could even continue with his tale of woe, however, there was a tremendous crash, followed closely by the sound Ambient hated most in all the world.

"AMMMMMBIEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNT!"

Ambient closed his eyes, attempted to summon the will to continue living, and failed miserably. This was not happening. None of this was happening. It was not real. He had simply (and uncharacteristically) fallen asleep sometime in the afternoon after receiving Specular's affirmative reply text, and was having a nightmare about literally every possible thing that could go wrong going wrong. That was all. Any moment now and he would wake up and go frost his cupcakes in preparation for a fun night spent with a really special girl. Any moment now...

Ambient was rudely awakened - from his deluded fantasies - by Hiltz charging down the hallway and practically crashing into him in his state of cartoonishly heightened excitement. He bore an enormous brown sack slung over one shoulder, stuffed to the gills with who knew what, and in his scarlet garb, with a mouth surrounded by enough gleeful foam to resemble a white beard, he looked for all the world like a demonic Santa Claus.

"AMBIENT!" Hiltz cried, giggling like a maniac, which is to say, like himself. "I have located and purchased all of the items on your list! It is time to begin the first phase! Today marks the beginning of the end for the Guardian Force!" And with this theatrical monologue, Hiltz turned and pranced off into the kitchen, tee-heeing to himself the whole way.

Theft wasn't really Ambient's style, and so he had simply "relocated" most of the money out of Hiltz's wallet that morning, in hopes of preventing this exact scenario. He knew for a fact that Hiltz had only had three dollars and twelve cents on him at the time that he had left the house a couple of hours ago. How Hiltz had managed to make this impressive a volume of purchases with such scant currency was a mystery that would have to be solved another time. For now, Ambient cringed at the very notion of what Hiltz bore in his oversized pack. With the way things were going, all was probably precisely as had been specified on the faux shopping list. Which meant, in addition to addressing the ongoing catastrophe of his date night being intruded upon and likely ruined, he would also be required, at some point, to explain how a heap of cobwebs and some German-Zoidian bilingual dictionaries were going to result in the downfall of the Guardian Force. That was certainly going to necessitate some creative thinking on his part, but for now, all of his mental faculties would have to be triaged to where they were needed most: figuring out how to save the slow-motion train wreck that was his date with Specular.

He looked down the hallway and observed Hiltz merrily spreading the diagram Ambient had drawn earlier across the kitchen table, then dared turn his head back to the living room. Specular was looking at him expectantly as though nothing whatsoever out of the ordinary had occurred. "Rioaargh?" she asked, holding up the DVD case.

Ambient nodded. Before the movie was a good time for a "bathroom break," furthermore known as "sounding the alarm." "Reeeearigh, raorghh," he assured her, then dashed off to the bathroom, grabbing his cell phone from his bedroom along the way.

 _SOS!_ he texted the moment he'd closed the bathroom door, his claws fumbling in his haste over the (thankfully) scratch-resistant screen.

His phone chimed less than thirty seconds later:

 _gotcha covered bro_

Ambient heaved a sigh of relief. He knew his friend would not let him down. Time to go finish explaining to Specular the sad tale of his unfulfilled gift to her, and then, he supposed, start the movie. Assuming Hiltz left them alone long enough to actually watch it, that is. Surely the ancient Zoidian wouldn't spend the entire evening staring at that nonsensical diagram? Then again, after consuming at least three pounds of sugar in one sitting, who knew what magical apparitions were swimming before his eyes as he gazed at those indecipherable scribbles?

Ambient rubbed his own eyes. It wasn't too late for this all to have been some kind of bizarre fever dream...

-.-.-.-

Specular remained perched in her comfortable, curled-up position on the couch, continuing to observe the strange goings-on with mild interest. She was no stranger, of course, to the mysterious antics of ancient Zoidians with unknown "issues" and/or substance abuse problems, and therefore had been disturbed not a whit by Hiltz's sudden and dramatic appearance a couple of minutes prior.

What _did_ have her concerned, however, was Ambient's strange behavior. It was almost as if he had been avoiding her all evening. He seemed to keep finding pretexts to look away, to not meet her eyes, to excuse himself, to leave the room, to not sit down on the couch beside her so they could finally get this silly movie underway. And he'd barely spoken three words to her aside from gabbling anxiously for a few seconds about something to do with cupcakes. If he wasn't interested in her, then why had he invited her over? Were all of his buddies lurking somewhere nearby, ready to laugh at her when he made some grand pronouncement of what a loser she was?

She shook her head. Daft, more like: she should have realized way back during Death Saurer's party what was really going on. How could she have been this foolish to set herself up for yet another humiliation?

Ambient's return from the bathroom to the living room was not yet forthcoming, and so Specular dejectedly fished her phone out from her bag and tapped out a text: _If this is supposed to be a date it's the worst one I've ever been on._ She gazed absently at the darkened flatscreen television. They should have been well on to the part where some car blew up and crashed into another car or whatever by now.

Specular had never lacked for interested suitors, and not because of any of her mind control shenanigans, either. Her unusual blue sheet metal turned heads wherever she went, and her great height, rare cranial horn arrangement, and formidable psychic abilities attracted all matter of smitten blokes. She could have had a boyfriend hundreds of times over by now if she'd wanted one, but the problem was, she simply hadn't found the right one yet. Boys who were so head over heels for her exotic appearance and talents that they may as well already have been under the influence of her powers were off-putting, to say the least, and this category encompassed nearly all those who had attempted to court her.

And then there was Ambient. Comfortably aloof - she didn't like the overly clingy sort, anyway - and seemingly uncowed by her choosy reputation. Cool as a cucumber when she had made the unprecedented move of expressing interest, and in fact, had done nothing at all to express any interest of his own aside from texting her earlier that day.

But that was the problem, wasn't it? His text was literally all she had to go on.

It figured that the only guy she'd ever experienced so much as a flicker of interest in was not, in turn, interested in her. What were the odds? She sighed at the same time that her phone chimed.

 _TOTAL WAR IT IS_

Oh, stars, had her text ever been misinterpreted! _No, don't! I'm dine!_ she replied immediately, typoing in her haste.

But no response came, and Specular knew what that meant.

Trouble.

She was beginning to wish she'd just stayed home with Reese. Even the stupefyingly dull games of Go Fish and Old Maid they played together night after night, where each repeatedly mind-read the other to the point of rendering the game futile, had to be better than this.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5**_

Ambient, returning from the bathroom, saw Hiltz still in the kitchen - where he was continuing to feverishly pore over the schematic from earlier, pointing to various batches of scribbles, rubbing his chin, and nodding to himself - and trudged back to the living room. The cupcakes were barely of any concern to him now, after that fiasco Specular had just witnessed. There would be no recovery after such a disaster, so he may as well apologize for, well, everything ever, and offer to escort her home, an offer she would surely refuse. And why shouldn't she?

Specular was still perched on the couch where he'd left her, staring off into space, her phone sitting untouched beside her.

"Roagh?" he ventured uncertainly. She gazed blankly at him. He gulped. Of course she wanted to leave, see how bored she looked! But he should ask her anyway, so as to be polite, and not make any assumptions. "Raaergh raaoiggh rrreeargh?"

Specular appeared momentarily offended by his question and opened her mouth to answer, but at that very moment, Hiltz came galloping out of the kitchen so hastily that he wasn't able (or didn't try; unclear) to stop before crashing headlong into Ambient with an exaggerated metallic clang. Ambient's memory banks were close to overloading from despair by this point, and so he could literally do nothing but gaze in wonder down at the redhead's sprawled form.

Hiltz was back on his feet almost immediately, however, apparently none the worse for wear, and issued forth the most deranged round of giggles Ambient had yet heard from him, which was really saying something. "Ambient! Ambient!" Hiltz gasped, as though he had just run a great distance instead of down the hall to deliver this important impending informational tidbit. "Upon completion of acquiring all the materials needed for phase one, I took the liberty of extrapolating next steps in your glorious master pla -" He stopped speaking suddenly and gawked wide-eyed at Specular, perhaps only now noticing the presence of a hulking azure dinosauric robot nestled in the corner of his living room couch. "Why, Ambient," he said, a hideous grin blooming across his face like an unsightly stain spreading over carpet, "you were one step ahead of me all along, weren't you? Of course, it all makes sense now! Your combined powers controlling the Death Stinger would surely be enough to overcome the jamming effects of the rarehertz! Brilliant, I say, Ambient. Brilliant! I would have expected nothing less."

Specular tilted her head in bewilderment. "Rugh?"

"Come now, what's your name, my sweet? Surely you detest the Guardian Force as much as I do?"

Ambient could endure not a moment more. He positioned himself behind Hiltz, looming ominously over the clueless maniac, and was just about to open up his chest plates and bear Hiltz off to who knew where, when suddenly the front door crashed open again, for what seemed like the millionth time, although this time it had been kicked down. Ambient groaned. What fresh hell was this now? But then he looked, and gasped.

"The Guardian Force has arrived!" Van Flyheight announced theatrically, striking a hero's pose in the doorway.

"We're here to rescue the innocent and punish evil-doers!" Fiona continued, mirroring Van's pose.

"RAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!" Zeke added with a bellow from behind them both, just for that extra dramatic flourish. He then gave Ambient a quick, furtive wink.

Ambient would have wept with joy, were organoids capable of tears. His dear friend had made good on his promise! With the Guardian Force here, Hiltz would be too preoccupied to continue ruining date night with Specular!

Specular, meanwhile, simply sat on the couch blinking and stupefied at what was happening in the hallway before her.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Hiltz cried in an agony. "Not the Guardian Force! Our master plan isn't ready yet! How did you find my hidden lair?!"

"Oh, Hiltz," Fiona giggled, as though he were a silly, naughty, harmless child. "Yours is the only house in town with a giant 'Hiltz's Hidden Lair' sign out front!"

Hiltz cursed to himself while everyone stared at him. "How could I have been so foolish?! I underestimated their intelligence-gathering capabilities severely! This will not do at all, no... OH!" He stopped suddenly, not noticing everyone staring at him. "Note to self! Yes. Must recruit more Helcat spies to even the intelligence gap." He pulled a small spiral-bound notebook and pen out of his pocket and began furiously scribbling as all assembled continued to stare.

"Alright then!" he finally said, putting away his notebook and pen a few minutes later. "Now that the Guardian Force has been kind enough to deliver itself directly to my doorstep, I believe it is time that we destroy you once and for all!"

"C'mon, Fiona! Let's get in the Blade Liger!" Van shouted far more loudly than was necessary.

"Catch us if you can, Hiltz!" Fiona taunted as she dashed out the door after him, Zeke remaining behind to ensure their foe did not attempt escape. The Blade Liger, it should be noted, had been conveniently parked nearby, on the neighbor's front lawn.

Hiltz, meanwhile, was also preparing for battle. "It is time to resurrect the unholy beast! The messenger of doom! The harbinger of destruction! The cursed scorpion! The deadly monster! The wicked bug! The corrupted creepy-crawly...the DEATH STINGER!" He took a deep breath and screamed, "AMBIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNT!" as though his organoid weren't already standing right next to him.

Ambient half-cringed, half-hunched to protect himself against the cacophony. Things truly couldn't get any worse, he decided. He opened one squeezed-shut eye to look into the adjacent room and see how Specular was getting on, if indeed she was even still there, and he certainly couldn't blame her if she wasn't.

Specular, he saw, was on her feet, tail lashing back and forth as she gazed in horror at the front door.

What now? he wondered as he turned his head miserably to see what disaster awaited him next.

There was a creepy young woman with blue hair standing on the threshold. Her dead eyes blazed cerulean. "NOW, SPECULAR!" she screamed.

"Roooogh!" Specular cried in despair.

Reese's eyes returned to normal. "Oh my beautiful Specular, I was reading your mind and saw that you were in some kind of trouble. I had to come as quickly as I could." She turned a hateful glare on Ambient and Hiltz. "None of these pathetic males are good enough for you! Come, darling."

Before Reese got even one foot out the front door again, or Specular was able to utter a growl of protest, a black Nissan GT-R with dark-tinted windows and blacked out lights and rims came screeching up to the curb out front. The bass on the vehicle's sound system was so powerful that the ground shook, but not much of the music itself could be heard until the passenger door swung open and a black organoid dove out, roaring a challenge to all assembled.

With the car door now ajar, it became evident that the music was Linkin Park's "Crawling."

"These woooouuuuunds they willlllllll not heeeeeeeeal," sang Raven from the driver's seat before he noticed that his passenger had disembarked. "Hey Shadow, be good, a'right? Text me if you need a ride home la - whoa." He stopped speaking suddenly and lifted his black shades up onto the top of his head to the better stare at Reese.

She was staring back at him, and, almost robotically, bore herself down the front walkway to his car. She leaned down to look into the cabin.

"Hi, I'm Raven," said Raven.

"Hi, I'm Reese," said Reese. "Nice ride."

"Thanks. My Breaker's in the shop. You like GT-Rs?"

"I love GT-Rs."

"You like Linkin Park?"

"I _love_ Linkin Park," she breathed.

Those who were paying close attention instead of simply watching the proceedings, awestruck, might have noticed the liveliness in Raven's violet eyes, and the lack of eerie glow emanating from Reese's.

"You doing anything right now? I was just heading to my support group on the other side of town. You could come if you wanted. I get the feeling...that you have tons of issues, too."

Without even a spoken word of assent, let alone a backward glance at Specular (or anybody else, for that matter), Reese climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door. The GT-R roared off down the block and its round taillights soon disappeared into the dusk.

Shadow hurried over to Specular's side. "Reaaergh?" she asked, checking her all over for signs of injury.

"Ragh, ragh," Specular replied, lightly pushing her away with a sort of loving irritation.

All was quiet for a moment and Ambient looked around. The situation had gone so far off the rails that he really and truly, genuinely did not know what to do now. The Blade Liger stepped onto the front lawn, facing the house, and aimed its chest-mounted cannons squarely at the front door. "You ready to fight, Hiltz?" Van's voice came over the loudspeaker.

Hiltz! Ambient swung around. Where was that loon, anyway? He saw him sneakily tiptoeing (in plain sight) towards Specular and Shadow, kneading his hands gleefully and giggling something to himself about three organoids reconstituting the Death Stinger being better than two, and finally, Ambient had had enough. He caught Zeke's eye and they both nodded to each other. Zeke hustled to the front door and bellowed for Van and Fiona, while Ambient advanced upon Hiltz so as to spare the girls any further hassle, but he needn't have bothered.

The second exaggerated metallic clang of the day rang out around the first floor of the house, as Specular whipped herself in a circle and smashed her tail decisively into Hiltz's waist, sending him flying right out of the room and into the wall of the entry hallway.

Van and Fiona rushed back into the house just then, and saw Hiltz's ragdoll-like body on the floor. "Sorry, Zeke," Van said, shaking his head. "I thought for sure he'd take the bait and leave the house." He nudged Hiltz with his boot; the ancient Zoidian was out cold. "What should we do with him now?"

"Reaiiragh?" Zeke suggested with a sneaky-looking smile.

Fiona snapped her fingers. "That's right!" She grinned at Ambient. "Don't worry Ambient, we'll take care of everything."

Ambient scratched his head. What had Zeke meant by "our really, really, really big friend"?

Van grinned now, too. "This mate of ours has a real scarcity problem with her ammo, see. I'm sure Hiltz could find a way to lend his, uh, 'talents.'" And with that cryptic remark, he scooped Hiltz's floppy body up over one shoulder, and headed back out the front door.

"Coming, Zeke?" Fiona asked, turning.

"Roooiiargh, ragh raagh."

"Oh! I see." Fiona beamed widely at him. "We'll see you later, then." She trotted out the door after Van, waving over her shoulder. "Byeeeeeee!"

Zeke turned to Shadow. Ambient, still thoroughly confused, watched him, and then started. Was Zeke _blushing_? There seemed to be a bit of a pinkish hue to his silver sheet metal...

"Reoogh," Zeke said to Shadow, holding out one paw.

"Reoogh," Shadow replied, taking his paw in her own.

Ambient blinked. Casting a glance at Specular, he noted that she seemed just as thunderstruck as he himself was. Had those two been secretly dating under their friends' very noses?!

Zeke accompanied Shadow to the front door and clapped Ambient on the back as he went by. "Rrerrgggh," he said breezily.

All's well now, indeed, Ambient thought dazedly as he watched their mutual friends set off into the twilight together.

It was just him and Specular left. He dared meet her eyes; their amber depths were not unfriendly. Suddenly, he couldn't wait a moment longer to apologize, to explain everything. "Raaegh!" he began. He hadn't been blowing her off at Death Saurer's party; quite the opposite! "Raaooiorgh raghergh rioriagh!" He'd been too much of a coward to risk being snubbed while his friends were there! "Roareggh raoghh raerrrgh rorargh!" He had misread her signals at the time and only after the fact realized what had been happening! "Rruereghghh rraerigh ruogh raghh!" And...

Before she could respond to anything from the monologue thus far, he galloped back into the kitchen and retrieved his naked desserts.

"Roiuergh?" he asked her, holding up the tray. Cupcakes?

Specular smiled and took the tray in one paw and then his paw in the other, and guided him over to the couch. She seemed not only happy, but relieved, he realized. He tried not to let his paw shake in hers.

They sat down, facing each other. Specular placed the cupcakes on the coffee table and took his other paw in hers now, too. "Rauargergh riigh riiiggh," she told him, gazing deeply into his eyes.

She was used to crazy ancient Zoidians, too? Ambient suddenly felt a sense of blank calm melting soothingly over him and sighed blissfully. Somehow, against all odds, things had worked out, after all.

He picked up the remote and flipped on the TV and DVD player and felt his blue date nuzzle comfortably up against him for the movie.

Specular, meanwhile, was quite pleased with matters. Not only had Ambient somehow managed this sequence of disasters with aplomb, but he was the first organoid she had ever met who would be able to truly empathize with her "crazy ancient Zoidian caretaker" problems. And that sweet gesture of the cupcakes! They were her favorite kind: sans frosting. She hated how frosting always got stuck to her claws. How annoying! So...had he known? Or perhaps, it was a sign.

And after all that fruitless worrying! He had been into her too, all along.

She snuggled up closer to him. Forget Reese and her awful advice about mind control; Specular preferred the genuine article.


End file.
